Again Gail shook her head. “That’s why I’m here.”
“How does”—I paused, trying to recall the name of her department—“forensic anthropology come in?”
“We can perform certain tests that can help determine the most accurate time of death.”
“But you said she was killed a year ago,” I said, pulling out my room key.
“She went missing a year ago. Her body was found a month later, a little ways off a rural trucking lane. But even though it’s been a while, the soil in the area holds clues as to when she was put there. That at least helps answer a few outstanding questions the police have. Was she killed here in the hotel? Was she kidnapped and held for a period of time? All of this can help create a profile of the type of person who would do this. Help the police catch him, whoever he is.”
We’d stopped in front of my door. The gold numbering above the peephole seemed too bright, like some sort of calling card. “You can tell all that from the soil?”
Gail nodded cheerfully. “The decomposition of a body can actually change the phenotype of the local vegetation. In some cases, even decades after human remains are found, plants that should grow green foliage can grow bright red. It has to do with the nitrogen released in the cadaveric process and the leaf’s response to the integration of these nutrients.”
“Wow,” I said, doubting my every last contribution to the world.
Gail fell silent a moment. “It’s kind of comforting, if you think about it. It’s like, even though she lost her life, she still gets to be a part of the world, in her own way.”
We smiled at each other, quick and sad. I’d come up here to splash water on my face, to get ahold of myself. Square off with my reflection in the bathroom mirror and ask again where all my perversion came from. But I felt some of my self-loathing dissipate. I had my problems, my weaknesses, and succumbing to them had contributed to the lousy belief that I did not belong anywhere, not in a marriage and not at home with my mother either. But it was comforting to think that the earth always found a place for us.
I fitted the key in the lock and pushed the door open wide. The maid had left the bedside lamp on when she came to do turndown service, and we could see that the coast was clear.
“Thanks for walking with me,” I told Gail. “But now I feel bad you have to go the rest of the way alone.”
Gail frowned, thinking. “How about this? I’ll call down to reception and ask them to transfer me to your room once I’m back. Ruth Wachowsky, right?”
“Right,” I said. “But I’m here with my friend Martina Cannon. The reservation is under her name.”
“Ruth Wachowsky and Martina Cannon,” Gail said, committing our names to memory as she started back down the hall.
“If I don’t hear from you in two minutes, I’m calling the sheriff,” I warned her.
Gail laughed and quickened her pace. “Start the countdown, Ruth Wachowsky!”
I waited until the elevator came and Gail climbed on before I closed and locked my door. I went over to the bed and peeled off my wet socks while I waited for the phone to ring. My mind wandered again to Julia Child and something she once said on an episode of The French Chef, in her “ridiculous” voice that my mother couldn’t stand. “Nothing you ever learn is really wasted,” Julia had said with a chicken neck in one fist, “and will sometime be used.” I was thinking about this when Gail called to let me know she’d gotten back in one piece.
PAMELA
Tallahassee, 1978
Day 14
I arrived back in Tallahassee as the sun cleaved the Westcott Towers, feeling like I’d gotten twelve hours of sleep instead of two. It was Sunday, and while I had a million things to do to get The House ready for the girls that evening, I was not at all concerned about how I would get them done. Some people need caffeine to get them going, others just need to be able to say I told you so. Though I’d known it was The Defendant I’d seen at our front door, I’d been made to doubt myself. I was champing at the bit to confront Sheriff Cruso with what we’d learned in Colorado.
But the rush of being right began to fade as we neared The House, and when Tina parked at the curb to drop me off, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the days the place had sat dormant, the extensive number of rooms, the claustrophobic hallways, the closets and nooks and crannies—
“I’m coming in with you,” Tina said as we stared out at the blank-faced windows.
I didn’t protest.
Tina turned off the engine, and together we walked up the white brick path to the front door, pausing at the mailbox so I could collect the last few days’ worth of mail. I wedged the bills and letters of condolence from alumnae and perfect strangers under my arm and entered the new combination code.
The hallway smelled cold and stale. There was a slash of black tape across the threshold where I’d seen him and scratches on the hardwood from the Brillo pad I’d used to scrape up flecks of dried blood.
Tina rubbed her arms. “Let’s start by putting on the heat.”
* * *
We pushed the couches in the rec room against the wall and I vacuumed while Tina held up the cord. We laid out the sleeping bags in the shape of a sunburst, then pushed the couches up to the border, creating a wall around the girls who would sleep in the outermost ring. We found cake mix in the cupboards—Tina suggested a sheet cake cut into squares instead of cupcakes. Ruth had made her one once, after she mentioned it was something they did in Texas. Plus, it would come together faster than cupcakes, and we had a lot more work to do.
I had scheduled the new mattresses to arrive on Saturday, back when I thought I’d be returning from Colorado late Friday night. They’d been dumped unceremoniously by the back door; a rodent had chewed through one of the boxes while I was away. At least it hadn’t rained.
But before we could take them upstairs, we had to dispose of the soiled mattresses from Eileen and Jill’s room. We got the first one down the back staircase in a spectacular tumble, and I wiped my brow. “I’m gonna turn off the heat.”
Tina nodded. Please.
We filled a bucket with hot soapy water and spent nearly two hours scrubbing at the blood that had congealed in the crevices of the bedframe. We took the cake out of the oven and jiggled it; it needed another twenty minutes. We got one new mattress upstairs and took the cake out again. This time it was ready. We let it cool on the counter while we loaded the other mattress onto our backs and huffed and puffed up the stairs. We made up the beds with the fresh linens, frosted the cake, and hung new curtains in room ten. I looked at the clock and could not believe when I saw it was four in the afternoon. My skin felt slick, and the back of my shirt was stiff with sweat that had dried, then gotten wet and dried again.
“Do you mind,” I asked Tina haltingly, “just hanging around while I shower?” I could not imagine doing it alone.
“Not at all,” she said.
“I’ll be quick,” I promised.
“Take the time you need.”
In the bathroom, I stood before Denise’s cubbyhole. Denise was a beauty junkie who always had the latest shampoo or hand lotion in her shower caddy. I took it into one of the stalls with me. She would hate for any of that to go to waste.
I turned on the shower as hot as it would go, and then I stood under the spray far too long, working Denise’s shampoo into my hair, lathering my knees and underarms with Denise’s shaving cream. It was something called Crazylegs, and I loved it so much I became a convert. When Johnson & Johnson discontinued it in 1986, it felt like another death.
* * *